


Tired

by Kuraagins



Category: The Book of Mormon - Ambiguous Fandom, The Book of Mormon - Parker/Stone/Lopez
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-06
Updated: 2018-06-06
Packaged: 2019-05-19 01:19:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14863943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kuraagins/pseuds/Kuraagins
Summary: Connor hardly sleeps anymore, and it's starting to take a toll on his day to day life.





	Tired

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so this is more Connor-centric even though I wanted it to be more mcpriceley but I hope you all still like it <3 Also, I personally headcanon that Connor has sleep paralysis which is why he has the 'hell dream' every night so I tried to incorporate that a little bit with this :)

They’ve all had the hell dream. Connor wasn’t special, he shouldn’t use it to excuse his issues. But he wasn’t sleeping anymore, and it was having a heavy impact in his day to day life. 

He couldn’t help it; the dreams were to much for him to handle anymore. Every night he’d feel that terrible pressure on his chest and he wouldn’t be able to breathe or move or do anything apart from accept the horrible torture that he’d be put under. There would be visions and pain and taunts and once Connor managed to wake up again he would do anything rather than put himself though that again. So he stayed awake. Some nights, he didn’t sleep at all. He’d force himself to keep his burning eyes open until the sun came up, just so he didn’t have to go back to hell. 

The first time the other Elders started to suspect that something was up with their district leader was when he showed up late to morning briefing. Elder McKinley never showed up late to anything, let alone something that was his responsibility to lead. Elder Thomas marched into their shared room and rocked Connor awake. 

“Elder McKinley! Wake up you’re late for our morning briefing,” He chided. 

“’m sorry,” McKinley mumbled as he was just coming around. It took him a couple of moments as he took in his surroundings to realised what had happened. Fully processing what Elder Thomas had just told him, Connor sprung out of bed and rummaged through his drawer to pull out a fresh uniform to throw on over his temple garment. 

“This isn’t like you, Elder McKinley,” Elder Thomas pointed out, hovering awkwardly on the other side of the room whilst his mission partner got dressed. 

“I know, I know,” Connor sighed, “I’m sorry. I just had a… really weird dream,”

“Not to be rude, I know you’re our district leader and all, but… we’ve all had the hell dream,” he points out, raising an eyebrow sceptically. 

Connor looks away with embarrassment, “I’m aware. I’m sorry, I promise it won’t happen again.”

Of course, it did happen again. On one such morning where Connor was running way behind schedule for the day, he managed to fall full force into Elder Cunningham as he was rushing around. 

“Oh! Elder Cunningham, I’m so sorry-” Connor began, but before he could even hear the other boy’s good-natured response, he backed right into Elder Price, who was always diligently near his mission companion. Kevin let out a loud yelp and Connor whipped round and gasped in horror to see that he had caused the taller boy to spill hot coffee all over his pristine white shirt.

“Elder Price! Goodness I’m so sorry- I didn’t mean- can I help- oh gosh,” Connor stumbled through his words, his chest tightening as he began to find it harder to breath.

“It’s okay, Elder McKinley, really. I can always go change,” Kevin smiled that dazzling Mormon poster boy smile even though he must have been in immense pain. 

“I- I can’t believe I… I’m sorry!” Connor rushed off to hide in his room as he felt tears pricking in his eyes. No matter how pathetic he was behaving he would not let the other Elders see their district leader cry.

Connor tried to avoid Elder Price as much as possible after that, but that’s not exactly easy considering they lived together. Less than a week after that incident the pair got stuck on cleaning duty together for the day. 

They didn’t speak for the first half an hour; Connor was still upset about the coffee debacle and Kevin didn’t want to accidentally trouble him again. 

“You look very nice today, Elder McKinley,” Elder Price says eventually. 

Connor froze because what on earth kind of comment was that? He thought about that morning when he had looked in the bathroom mirror to see his hair sticking up all over the place, horrendous bags under his eyes and a spot that had broken out on his chin overnight. He came to the conclusion that Elder Price must have been making fun of him.

“That tie’s pretty, it brings out your eyes,” He added, and Connor glared at him.

“Stop it, Elder Price. Just leave me alone,” he stated, before turning back to complete the task at hand. 

“I- I was just complimenting you, I’m trying to be nice,” Kevin explained, his brows furrowing with confusion.

“Well don’t!” Connor cried out, his cheeks turning red as his voice broke embarrassingly on the last word of his sentence.

Luckily, Elder Price didn’t make any further comment and they continued their work in silence. Once they’d finished, Elder McKinley left wordlessly to hide himself in his room for the remainder of the day. 

All of this came to a head when Elder Price went to visit Elder McKinley in his personal ‘district leader’ office. The latter had been sat with his head in his hands staring at a blank piece of paper for at least an hour. He was still trying to figure out how to draft a report to the mission president explaining that they had not returned home as they would all be staying in Uganda to help the villagers separately from the LDS Church. But the words just would not come to him; there were about five scraps of paper that had been written on and then scrunched up and thrown in the bin already. The last thing he needed was the very distracting Elder Price barging in and completely throwing him off. 

“Elder McKinley, can I borrow a pen?” He asked nonchalantly.

For some reason that Connor couldn’t explain, he suddenly felt inexplicably hot and angry, and he snapped back at the other missionary: “No, you cannot.”

“Wh- Elder, it’s only a pen why not?” He laughed awkwardly. 

“Because I said so, now please go away,” 

“Oh, come on don’t act so childish,” Kevin huffed, and when Connor bit his lip and didn’t respond in fear of irrationally blowing up at his friend, he continued, “You’ve been acting really off these past few weeks and I want to help you but I don’t know how! All you ever do is snap at people or shut yourself away in your room but we’re all worried about you. You need to tell us what’s going on or else things will never get better, and I hate seeing you so upset like this so just talk to me-!”

“I’m fine! I’m just tired!” Connor yelled, cutting Kevin off and abruptly standing to make his point. He immediately regretted this action though as his head began to swim and his vision started to blur. The last thing he saw before hitting the floor was his name on Kevin’s lip as the boy hurried forwards with concern. 

When he awoke, it was dark out, and Connor guessed it must have been late at night. 

He realised, as he went to sit up and take in his surroundings, that he hadn’t had a hell dream that time he had fallen asleep. He also realised that he wasn’t able to get up, and that he was not in his own room. 

Kevin and Arnold had the smallest room out of everyone – it was practically a closet with the two beds squashed together in the corner. Kevin Price was laying next to him, his eyes closed and his right arm flung protectively around Connor. 

He let out a shaky breath, realising the precarious situation that they were in, but was quickly soothed by Kevin’s strong grip and calming breath. They would have to talk about this in the morning, he knew, but in that moment, he was content to just feel cared for by Kevin, as he drifted off into another hell dream-less sleep.


End file.
